Comment: The Search for Infallible Humans Continues...

For investigators of accidents and disasters, human error has long been a treasured panacea, scapegoating individuals and, therefore, distancing their employers and companies from the loss of lives. The underlying assumption is that all employees should be perfect, never lose concentration, never become confused, and never make misjudgements. That is, they should not be human at all. The term 'human error' is conceptually bankrupt. Systems should be designed in such a way as to anticipate normal human fallibilities and safeguard against these.

The collision between the Tricolour and the kerosene-laden Turkish boat, the Vicky, on Wednesday was just the latest in a long line of disasters involving human agency which includes the Chernobyl meltdown, the Challenger explosion, and the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident. Last year, two web-based events made news and were similarly dismissed by spokesmen: Egg's online banking customers being able to access other customers' details, and Dell customers attempting to purchase a speaker system at a tenth of its actual price.

We do not yet know what indicators were available to those responsible for piloting the Vicky, but they were (evidently) not well engineered.

One of the basic tenets of cognitive psychology is that people are more than happy to take mental shortcuts – reducing complex scenarios in order to understand them more quickly. The explanation of 'human error' as the cause of a tragedy, in favour of a more subtle systems analysis of disasters or accidents, does nothing to improve the public's understanding of science. Commentators should play an active role in education instead of dismissively claiming human error as the cause of all problems.

Gerred Blyth
gerred@amber-light.co.uk

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